"In this blog I look beyond the obvious and try to find out why people and companies do what they do - and what it means for the rest of us." -Steve Duplessie

I've been thinking about the internet of things (IoT) for a while, but am only now finally starting to grasp the magnitude of what is going to happen - in short, everything (literally) is going to change. Everything.

A few months ago, the US government did a completely insane, and massively far reaching thing - it forced Microsoft to hand over e-mails and personal information of customers of US companies on a server that is in IRELAND.

It's essentially like telling the FBI that they have a right to barge into someone's house in Cork because some U.S. cousin might have sent them something illegal. As far as I know, that's not ok.

Today the Boston Globe published an article suggesting that the great (sarcasm) state of Massachusetts should repeal a longstanding law allowing Non-Compete agreements to be enforced (though oddly, ONLY for Tech Companies - so it's totally fine for everyone else).

It specifically called out EMC as a long-standing enforcer of these agreements.

In this video blog, I discuss considerations and requirements for the Data Center of Tomorrow, and how we make the leap from the Data Center of Today (well, really, Yesterday) to the Data Center of Tomorrow.

First, I can't believe that after changing the name of ESG from Enterprise Storage Group to Enterprise Strategy Group almost 13 years ago, I still got called the former in this Forbes Article.

The author quotes me somewhat incorrectly a few times, but the overall point was correct. I didn't say EMC follows the "5 step program" outlined specifically, I said all incumbent players tend to do this.

What if networks (or RAID controllers) were horizontal versus edge/core vertical? What if we didn’t even have switches? What if the server did its own switching and used a big mesh fabric to create a transient direct connected tunnel from point A to whatever point B is – another node, storage, whatever. You wouldn’t need buffering or queueing, etc. You would just open the pipe and rock and roll.

A server is a box with CPU cores, memory, flash, and storage. A storage array is a box with CPU cores, memory, flash, and storage. A network switch is a box with CPU cores, memory, flash, and storage. Thus, really, what's the difference between a white box server and storage array or a switch? Ports? Capacity? Big deal. The difference is the software function that is defined to execute on the various personalities involved. It's not the hardware anymore.

In short, technology is nice - but assuming that you have a "better way" to do something that can already be done some "less better" way by spending money with some incumbent vendor - your road to success will be brutal and statistically rare. I'm glad you have a better mousetrap, but history is littered with the carnage (or lack thereof in this metaphor) of better mousetraps.

But, if you have a better mousetrap - or (gasp!) sometimes a technically INFERIOR mousetrap - combined with a disruptive business model you have a far better chance of upsetting the status quo - or, better yet, the money flowing from the customer to the incumbent.

In this case I don't believe Cisco can ultimately keep SDN from happening universally, but it sure as heck is going to slow down that train for a while. Eventually, if it does see the light of day as I suspect it will, Cisco's core networking boondoggle will come under heavy fire - and it will be forced to adapt its business model in that sector, or abandon it - eventually.

Check out this video blog entry to see why, rather than "software-defined everything," we need to think about data-defined infrastructure, a model in which IT designs everything from the data outwards, in order to make sure that we store, protect, and deliver it in a way that supports the business to make money or save money.

There, of course, is some legitimacy to the phrase - but doesn't software already "define" everything in our IT world? Doesn't software provide the execution sets that tell our "stuff" what we want it to do? Therefore, isn't everything really already software-defined in many ways?

Long time friend and ESG'er Mike Beaudet has taken on this year's ESG Charity sponsorship efforts and is leading the charge to raise awareness and funding for a local chapter of Best Buddies (Along with Tom Brady, mind you.).

I was a bit surprised at the lack of interest in HP's Moonshot announcement by the big media. I suppose I understand the complexity combined with HP's less than stellar PR maneuvers over the last few years could keep some folks at bay, but this announcement has all the makings of a MASSIVE and exciting outcome.

Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst at ESG, is an internationally recognized expert in IT infrastructure technologies and markets. An acclaimed speaker and author, Steve’s insights have been featured in Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, The Financial Times, USA Today, China Daily, The Moscow Times, and many other print and online publications. Steve is a valued strategic advisor to many of the largest technology providers in the world, including IBM, HP, Dell, EMC, NetApp, HDS, and other global IT organizations.